Return
by Dicktock McJerry
Summary: During his final battle with Sasuke, Naruto is sent back to his training trip with Jiraiya in order to prevent the future that he couldn't at first. Currently on Indefinite Hiatus.
1. 1

The moon still sat above in the sky, and two men laid mutilated on rock, encompassed in their own personal revelations. Blood seeped from the wounds that were once their arms and flowed into a small pool in the cracks of the stone they rested on. An unorthodox way to solidify a kinship, with their beings finally coming into one in their blood. Through years of hardship, maturation, and a very

"How fitting is it that this is where we die?" sprung a cracked voice. The blond who it emanated from smiled a bit, cracking the dirt that had dried on his cheeks. He slowly moved his eyes to the boy lying next to him, not risking turning his neck.

The raven-haired boy continued to stare straight up, not risking looking at his best friend sitting next to him. Seeing his brother during the fight had been the first time he'd seen his sins laid bare, and he refused to let himself see them again for fear of his soul shattering. Instead he croaked out a weak reply.

"I always imagined myself kicking you into the ground. Can't say this is what I expected, but it isn't unwelcome."

Both boys chuckled a bit at the response and immediately regretted moving their arms even in the slightest. With that they settled again into a small silence before the blond offered up a solemn response.

"You know I guess Madara technically won. We're going to bleed out before we can release the genjutsu."

Naruto's eyes closed, and he lamented himself. There wasn't much stronger that he could become and yet he still felt that he should have been able to do more. If only he had perfected senjutsu to a higher degree or heightened his skills in taijutsu. Anything to have given him some sort of edge over any of the Uchiha he had faced that day.

 _I should have explored the wind manipulation more than just the rasenshuriken. Maybe more variety in my techniques could have provided a larger edge. Or what if I had learned and combined the eighth inner gate with my six paths senjutu? That would have bolstered my strength and speed tenfold until-_

His thoughts were interrupted by the voice next time him.

"I'm the only one that will die today Naruto. Whether you think you will or not, the world needs you more than it needs me."

Naruto turned his eyes once again to his teammate, mostly annoyed at how Sasuke had continued to belittle himself in regard to the grand scheme. Regardless, he let him continue, engaged in the voice of somebody that he hadn't seen in so long.

"The Kyuubi is most likely already healing your wound, at least to the point that you won't bleed out as fast as I do. You're the child of prophecy, remember? You're meant to save the world – to stop people like me. It wouldn't look too good on those Toads if you died such a stupid death as sitting on your ass bleeding out of your arm vagina."

After that comment the novelty of hearing Sasuke's voice had overstayed its welcome and Naruto lashed out with a response.

"Will you shut up Sasuke? The world needs both of us. It's why the Sage gave you part of his gift."

More than anything else, Naruto was angry towards the naivety of his friend's words. In his eyes, the world would be no better with Sasuke dead. Sure, maybe some of the Kage would love to see the Uchiha go, but if his war efforts had shown the shinobi world anything, it was that Sasuke was one of the only men alive capable of the highest caliber of heroism. His heart had changed from who he previously was, and his ability and willingness to help those in need at present far exceeds whatever capability of harm he had in the past.

Peace would reign in the shinobi world for now, but even Sasuke simply being alive gave Naruto a better feeling of security than thousands of other ninjas, and after what the world had just gone through, a feeling of safety is exactly what they all needed.

The Uchiha had decided not to respond, and instead closed his eyes waiting for the inevitable to come. There was no use in arguing with Naruto any longer. While he had matured during their years apart, he still remained as adamant as ever about both of their roles as protectors in this world. The blond would never see reason, so he would just let nature take its course.

The two sat on the rock for quite a bit longer, letting the silence overwhelm them. There was nothing that could be done except for hoping that a medic ninja would make their way to their location.

After quite a bit longer, Naruto looked over once again to his best friend. His eyes were open unfazed staring into the sky.

"What are you staring at?" Naruto whispered.

Sasuke said nothing. He simply kept staring at the sky unblinking.

"Sasuke you dumbass stop staring. What? The stars are that pretty tonight?"

Still no answer.

The blond kept questioning.

"You dick you're just ignoring me again, huh?" At this point, Naruto began an uncontrollable chuckle. "What? Now that you acknowledged me you think it'll be funny to stop answering me? I gotta say it's a clever little practical joke but it's really poorly done."

Sasuke's eyes remained open, and his mouth had not made the slightest quiver to indicate a response. It was then that Naruto noticed that small rise and fall of Sasuke's chest had ceased. Still, Naruto pressed on, now with tears welling at his eyes.

"C'mon Sasuke. Sakura's waiting for us. Kakashi, too. You think they're gonna let you go that easily?"

Tears began to fall now from his cerulean eyes, and his chuckle continued.

"You're the worst at jokes, you know that? Acting like you're dead. You're such an asshole." At this point his chuckles began to transform into light sobs, and he pleaded with the Uchiha to be joking with him, begging him to just blink, smile, cough, wiggle a finger. Anything to prove that he was still with him.

And still he received no reply.

He turned his head back to the sky, not believing what had happened, with tears still streaming down both sides of his face, dampening his cheeks. He closed his eyes, doing his damndest to escape the world of the living. Anything to get away from this nightmare. All of the years of promises and training and aiming for the one goal of bringing his friend home. All of it ended with the death of Sasuke Uchiha.

And with that, the death of Naruto Uzumaki's strength.

He did the only thing he could do. He cried. His emotional dam broke and he wailed into the night, cursing himself and whatever cruel entity let this happen. It was here, crying like an infant, that Naruto damned the cruelty of this world – that children barely out of adolescence were forced to fight and die for god knows whose sake.

He was only seventeen. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. Two seventeen-year-old boys were forced to fight to the death because of their differences in how the world should work. Two boys, not even fully out of puberty, were forced to decide on how the world should be run.

Far too much responsibility was laid on their shoulders, and one of them had paid the ultimate price for it.

His sobs turned to whimpers and he closed his eyes, hoping for the same fate as his best friend to befall him.

Instead of death, he was received with a searing pain throughout his body.

* * *

In the forests on the border of the land of fire, one figure sat alone at a fire, watching his godson sleep.

It was the end of their first week of their three-year training trip, and Jiraiya still couldn't get over how much the boy looked like his father. Give the little shit some longer hair and take away the whiskers and he would be the spitting image of Minato.

His thoughts reveled to his teaching days, when the legendary Fourth Hokage was just a small Gennin, easily excited and dangerously prodigious. It was the same fire that he saw in the brat sleeping across the fire from him. Sure, he wasn't the smartest shinobi in the world, but Naruto was crafty and caught on easily. Above that, his determination to succeed was unlike anything that he had ever seen before. In Jiraiya's eyes, that beat a prodigy any day.

Said boy stirred in his sleep, and Jiraiya closed his own eyes, ready to let dreams take him and his mind wander. He thought about the next few years. Maybe he'd write another book – not smut this time. He was sure that his adventures in this world with the unpredictable knucklehead ninja would provide him with the inspiration necessary for one with a more serious tone. Something that rivalled his first book in the care and dedication he felt towards compelling characters and plots. Something more than monotonous sex and nude scenes, but one that captured what it truly meant to be a shinobi.

A book of war and hardships, but also one of triumph and bonds. One that he could finally be proud to tell Naruto that he had written.

Screams erupted in the forest.

Jiraiya opened his eyes and immediately pulled out a kunai, scanning the area for any signatures of chakra, only to find that the screams had been coming from the blond laying on the ground. They were bloodcurdling, and the older man hurriedly jumped to the boy to try and wake him from whatever nightmare was happening.

When he reached Naruto and pulled him into his arms, he noticed that the blond wasn't sleeping at all. His eyes were wide, and tears were streaming from his face. The screams weren't of nightmares, but from pain. And what surprised the sage even more was the left eye of the blonde, which had morphed from its usual blue to a dull purple with circles surrounding his iris and three tomoes adorning a few of the rings.

Jiraiya ignored the eye for the moment and focused on the screeching boy, whose screams were beginning to die down. The white-haired man held the blond to his chest, cradling him and praying for the boy to stop crying.

 _Is this some kind of genjutsu? Or maybe some awakened bloodline? I mean, Nagato was an Uzumaki but I never considered the Rinnegan to be part of their heritage._

Naruto's yells died to whimpers as he continued to cry into the man's chest, muttering indistinguishable sentences while just repeating over and over-

"Jiraiya oh god. I thought you were…"

The boy continued to sob into the man's chest until he again fell asleep.


	2. 2

The white-haired man stared intently at the blond sitting across from him, and after the convoluted explanation that Naruto had just regurgitated, two words graced the Sannin's lips.

"That's horseshit."

It had been around two hours since the sun had risen along with the blond boy. In that time, Naruto had done his best to: 1) cope and accept the situation that he was currently in, and 2) explain to Jiraiya everything he knew about what was going on.

"No Jiraiya, I swear it. One minute I was dying in the Valley of End, and next I'm sobbing into your chest."

Understandably, this explanation really didn't alleviate the many doubts that the Sannin was having about the whole situation. As farfetched as many of the things he'd seen in his life were, travelling back in time was definitely the largest reach of all. Yet, here was the evidence, literally looking him straight in the eye.

He wanted to believe anything else. That this was a rogue ninja messing with him before going in for a kill. Or maybe he hadn't actually even woken up yet and this was the weirdest dream he'd had in a while. If so, his brain was getting lazy with the stories nowadays. _Too many plotholes_ , he thought to himself.

Jiraiya continued the dialogue. "You know you're not making this easy on me, right? The only real proof I have that what you're saying is the truth is the Rinnegan in your eye socket, which even you can't tell me where you got it."

"Hard on you?" the blonde replied hastily. "Do you know the emotional rollercoaster I went on seeing you again? Jiraiya you died! I mourned for you! Do you know what that put Tsunade and me through?"

"Well it's not like you're providing me that much convincing evidence you dick! What the hell do you want me to do? You can't honestly expect me to-"

"Minato and Kushina!" Naruto yelled.

The Sannin stopped cold while the boy continued.

"I wasn't supposed to find out until I turned sixteen, but I technically was previously. I even met small constructs of their chakra that were left behind for me to encounter; and you know that the Third would never have broken his word to Dad and told me early."

Naruto looked at Jiraiya with hope, banking on the Sarutobi's honor to convince the man. He knew that his birth to the couple was one of the highest ranked secrets in Konoha, so much so that only the ANBU present, two of the Sannin, and The Third Hokage knew of it. If there was anything that could convince the sage of the truth, it was his lineage.

Jiraiya had once again collected himself and sat much more reserved than he had previously been. As much as he wanted to believe that it was impossible, he had to begin entertaining the thought that the kid in front of him was telling the truth. The facts laid in front of him, however improbable they seemed, were the only explanation he had to the Rinnegan as well as Naruto's knowledge of his parents.

"Hell," Naruto continued half-jokingly, "I can bring the damned Kyuubi out to vouch for me if you still don't believe me."

"You can speak to that thing?" Jiraiya exasperated.

"Jiraiya a lot happened over the four years after I embarked on this training trip the first time."

 _Why is nothing ever easy with this damned brat?_ Jiraiya thought.

"And you have no idea how you came back?" Jiraiya reiterated. Naruto had already expressed his own unknowing as to his circumstances, yet Jiraiya had no other recourse than to hound him for the answer again and again.

"If I had to guess it would be some sort of space-time jutsu, but I don't know anything like it," Naruto replied. "What about you? Any ideas?"

"I've never heard of such a technique," Jiraiya stated. "However, space-time jutsu are notoriously clouded in mystery. The only people who really have any idea of their ins-and-outs are those who have mastered them. And even then, circumstances are always different for different techniques."

Both men nodded their heads in slight defeat, knowing that without ample time to research their theories, this time left speculating would be wasted, and they really didn't have the ability to settle down for an extended period of time.

After some more seconds of contemplation, Jiraiya looked back up at the blond sitting across from him. If there was truly anything he could do now, it was grasp a scope of what his apprentice was now capable of with all of the previous training he had technically gone through. This was still a training trip after all.

"Alright then, I guess I believe you. So tell me, where do your abilities fall at the moment?"

The blond smiled sheepishly and began his incredibly long and convoluted list of the techniques that he had acquired over the four years that had elapsed since the first training trip he took with Jiraiya.

Said sage was, at first, absolutely appalled, proud, and honestly slightly disgusted at the pure strength that his apprentice had developed through his time of training. However, as the list ran on and on, the descriptions of techniques became more monotonous than anything, to the point where the man was fed up with the versatility and prowess that Naruto had shown with the Rasengan.

 _How many god damn forms of a single technique can this kid come up with?_

Once the jinchuriki had finished the torturously long explanation of his abilities, the sage had annoyedly piped up with his two cents on the matter.

"What the hell am I supposed to teach you with all the shit you just told me? Sounds like you have everything under control!"

If anything, the man was just a bit embarrassed. He knew that the student was supposed to surpass the master, but to totally just out-fucking-class him like that? It's what he would call a "dick move" in regards to his legacy as a teacher.

With that comment floating in the air, Naruto began to think out loud, trying to convey his thoughts to his teacher.

"Think of it this way Jiraiya. Sage Mode, Six Paths Sage Mode, and all the other crap raise my strength proportionately, right? So basically it made me insanely powerful, but only when I was seventeen. Right now my strength is the lowest I have experienced it in four years. I have to completely retrain my body to the same state I was in and hopefully better to stand the same chance I did previously during the war. That all should take this entire training trip considering that's how long it took the last time.

"Additionally, since I'm back to a shorter version of me, it's going to take a while to get used to my body again so my movements don't feel clunky and unbalanced. That's all only going to get harder and harder since I'm just starting to go through puberty for the second fucking time.

"Basically, while all of my techniques came with me, the physical prowess that my body provided to help in those techniques decided to stay, meaning that not only am I smaller and weaker, but my chakra control is completely shot."

Jiraiya looked annoyed now. "So what, you want me to whip up a workout schedule for you? Maybe watch while you run around and do pushups all day? That sounds like a waste of both of our time."

The words left harsher than Jiraiya had intended them too, but Naruto took no offense by it.

It sounded like the man was being purposefully obtuse, but in truth he was just becoming increasingly frustrated that what had first been a great excuse for the two to bond through training together had now seemed to have left him in the dust while his godson worked with what he already knew.

As immature as it may have seemed considering the situation that he was now thrust into, he was really looking forward to being able to finally spend time with the son that he had never gotten to know. Now he was dead in the water with a thirteen-year-old that already had four years of memories that Jiraiya couldn't share with him. Hundreds of foreign expectations had just been laid upon him and understandably it was a lot for a man to handle in such a short period of time.

Jiraiya started to inwardly panic, hoping that he could live up to the man that Naruto already knew. However, he was unknowingly getting far ahead of himself.

"I can do all of the physical training on my own. That's what I did last time anyway," Naruto responded. He didn't sound angry or even the least bit annoyed. It was just a statement of fact. The older sage had always been incredibly busy with his spy network while on the trip. Hell, Naruto was sure that half the reason for the trip was to keep up with the damned thing. However, the blond understood that and never really placed any blame. It was just the duty of a ninja in this world.

"Though you must realize that even though I have all of those techniques at my disposal, there's still a vast gap in my skills. Mainly anything that doesn't involve throwing a ball of chakra at a person is my weak point."

"Well that seems effective enough if you ask me," Jiraiya rebutted.

"Maybe from a sheer power standpoint, but there's so much more that I could learn from you. You're one of the only sealing masters left in the world, and I think that not only is it important to my heritage to learn fuuinjutsu, but during the war to come, I know for a fact that I will need it in certain battles."

"When specifically?"

"Madara uses Edo Tensei to revive most of the notable ninja from the last few generations, probably since around the time of the First Hokage. I remember having to kill the Third Raikage again, and with him came the Fourth Kazekage and one of the Mizukage and Tsuchikage each. Those were some of the only ones that I remember facing, but I heard rumors of the last generation of the Mist's seven swordsman coming back as well, along with most of their weapons.

"The only way we could truly defeat them was to seal them away and being able to do that efficiently and with ease could save countless lives."

Silently, Naruto imagined being able to seal away Madara before he was ever fully revived but tucked it away as a fever dream. Nothing was ever that easy, that's for sure.

Jiraiya relented a bit but prepared to continue his questions, now more so genuinely curious as to what else the kid could want to learn. From his understanding the war had been won with incredibly minimum casualties considering the circumstances. Was the blond still too naïve to realize that not everybody could be saved.

The old man then pulled back on himself a bit, disregarded those thoughts. His own years spent in war had darkened his optimism to a level of realism bordering the pessimist side. _No, he isn't naïve. He knows that he can't save everyone. He just wants to save as many as he can. Something that Minato would have done the same of._ Something that Jiraiya had almost forgotten.

'I consider the future from the point to war starts to be completely unwritten' Naruto had said earlier, and it was precisely in his nature to pen his own pages of the story, in an attempt to forge the ending that he wanted rather than the one previously written. _The kid's trying to be the scribe of the gods,_ Jiraiya chuckled inwardly. _Revising a story that they had already written._

As an author, it jovially pissed him off.

Jiraiya abruptly stood up, leaving Naruto with a questioned look.

"What are you doing? We have so much more to talk about," Naruto said.

The older man stretched his back and arms, squinting into the light of the sun.

"I've heard just about enough for now, kid. We can go over the rest of the skills you want to learn later, but for now, I could really use a drink and a nice girl to pour it for me."

The blond became quite a bit upset at that comment. "Well I'm sorry to ruin your plans for the day, but like I've been telling you, we have a war to prepare for."

Jiraiya waved him off.

"I'm tired of talking for so long. Besides, it's like you said, we have three whole years to prepare."

Naruto stared dumbfounded for a moment, thinking it unbelievable that his godfather had just brushed aside news of the next Great War in favor for a drink and a cheap whore. The feeling of surprise slowly faded, and Naruto, staring at the back of his mentor walking away came to a realization.

This was exactly the man that he had known when he was thirteen: horny, alcoholic, and unapologetically dismissive at times.

Naruto's agape mouth formed into a tight smile and a chuckle. He got up, following his mentor slowly to the next town. Maybe he was right. They had three whole years to train and plan and focus on what was next.

For right now, maybe he could use a drink too. With the days to come, this may be one of the only times that he would get to share a drink with his father again.

Immediately he stopped his train of thought to rethink about what he had just referred to the perv as. Could he really consider the whoremongering drunk who barely taught him his father? He stared again at the back of the old man, who began whistling a tune to the tempo of his wooden sandals hitting the dirt path, and he smiled.

Yes, Jiraiya was his father. Just as much as Minato had been.

 **AN:**

 **It took a while.**

 **Here's the next chapter. Took out the Tsunade pairing from the categories because I'm still trying to work it in and if I can't do it in a way that isn't forced or doesn't make sense (which is very hard for this particular pairing) then I'm not going to do it and will go for somebody else. We'll see with the chapters to come. For now, enjoy this one.**


	3. 3

Three weeks after training with Jiraiya began, both men bunked separate rooms across from each other in a hotel, with the moonlight invading the blonde's room. What Naruto had assumed was his three-year training mission away from the Leaf was actually the month span between the preliminary and final rounds of the chuunin exam, meaning that the blonde would soon be back in the village and seeing all of his friends again in different bodies. Different bodies with different memories. It filled Naruto with a feeling of great loss.

At the moment, the blonde sat in the open windowsill, clad only in his mesh shirt and loose-fitting beige shorts that he had picked up a few towns over. His left leg dangled out of the window and every so often he would bring a bottle to his lips to inhale the sake inside. His other hand held a small cigarette rolled of green herbs that an apothecary promised would help him sleep and aid in the management of his anxieties and depression.

Contrary to popular belief, Naruto wasn't a complete idiot. He knew it was weed. Hell, the stuff was all over the red-light district back in Konoha, and he was mesmerized that this trip was the first time he was actually trying the stuff.

He hated to admit that it helped but coping with the sudden changes he was enduring seemed impossibly hard, and when the only man Naruto could talk to was the old perv that fueled his worst desires, he relented and adopted some unhealthy vices. It didn't make him proud, but it was the only way to get his mind off of the things he saw in the war.

It wasn't as easy as people thought it was for him; dealing with this sort of stuff. He had been hurt a lot in his life, yet it never got any easier to deal with trauma and grief. It was in his nature to act strong, even in the face of his greatest fears, and while he could still slap a smile on his face, it never diminished the turmoil that he felt in his head.

He constantly and unwillingly played the scenes of the deaths he'd been exposed to in the war in his head. Men burned alive and stabbed with their entrails were exposed. He had seen Madara's strength firsthand when he punched a hole through a man's head. He had never wished to see what a brain looked like, yet the image was forced on him all the same.

Worst of all was the ten tails: the eldritch horror that, when Naruto had laid his eyes upon it first, had completely disrupted his grasp on reality for a period. Even in this world of impossibilities made possible, nothing like that was ever supposed to exist. It wasn't something he could have imagined in the darkest portion of his deepest fears. It could almost drive a person insane to be in the presence of such overwhelming power.

All of these played like a movie in his head when he wasn't drowning himself in his sealing studies or physical training; but even when he had time to surrender himself to sleep, the scenes played in his dreams, too. Thus, he had opted not to sleep much anymore. At least when he was awake he could tell that they were only memories. When he dreamed, he relived them over and over again until he woke up screaming.

He molded the fear and sadness into rage, to the point that thinking of the war sparked a fire deep within him. To have children as young as thirteen prepared to die by the hands of another for the sake of squabbles between men sickened him to his core. He never truly considered how young he had been when his career as a ninja started, because his society had completely normalized the process. Now he vowed to make a change to system and disrupt this cycle of bloodshed.

He stayed gazing at the moon, truly one of his only friends in these times. It hadn't changed. It was something that stayed constant no matter where or when he was, listening when nobody else would. He couldn't talk to Jiraiya; although extremely empathetic, the man couldn't possibly comprehend the things he had seen in the war against the ten tails. He couldn't talk to the Third – his grandfather, Tsunade – his mother, Sasuke – his brother, even Kakashi, the one who he had always assumed would have an answer for everything. He could always talk to the moon, though. It would never leave him when the nights were long and lonely.

No matter the things they went through, no matter the losses they suffered, they couldn't possibly understand the weight on Naruto's shoulders or the horrors he had been subjected to. War was war, but the Fourth Great War was unlike anything Naruto had ever read about or been prepared for.

It truly broke his soul; and there was nobody alive to fix it.

 _ **What am I, chopped liver?**_

The voice surprised Naruto. He hadn't heard it in three weeks.

 _Kurama?_

 _ **Yeah kit, it's me.**_

Hearing the fox talk again caused a wave of emotion to erupt into Naruto. He felt the urge to cry but held back the tears if for nothing but the sake of his own pride. Instead, he addressed the fox in a shaky tenor.

 _Where have you been, bud? I've tried to contact you twice in the last three weeks, but the link always seemed cut._

 _ **It's been hard to deal with the change on this end too, though for different reasons than yours.**_

 _What do you mean?_

 _ **We're back in your old body. That means your old seal, too. Which is much stronger than it was when we were linked in the future. The sudden change was like being punched in the gut and taking in all my old chakra that you took after our fight felt like being hit by the skyscraper equivalent of a freight train.**_

Naruto took in the information dejectedly.

 _Does this mean to reopen our link I have to kick your ass again?_ Naruto joked.

The fox chuckled a bit.

 _ **No, kit. You've already proven yourself in my eyes. I'll be fine just giving you the chakra back, plus all the residual chakra that my siblings left with you during the fight with Madara. You'll be back at full strength as soon as you're ready.**_

Naruto lifted his mouth into a small smile at the news. That coupled with the euphoria of having such a permanent friend in his life again made the loneliness slightly loosen its grip on him.

 _ **The link from your direction to me has been closed, but I've still been listening and watching through your eyes. I can tell that you're not okay, Naruto. I'm not much of a psychiatrist, but I am always here to listen when you need me. I'm the best kind of friend. I can literally never leave**_ , the fox joked.

 _Thank you Kurama, that really means a lot. You ready to get this show on the road? I can come in right now and rip the seal off if you're decent._

 _ **Hold on, kit.**_ The fox sounded apprehensive, confusing the blonde.

 _ **Listen, you've already 'bested your inner darkness' and all that crap, but your mother and father's chakra are still in here waiting for you so they can save the day.**_

Naruto perked up at that. How could he have not picked up on that? He got to see his father and mother again. He almost burst into his mindscape right then and there to rip the tag off himself, but the fox interrupted the action.

 _ **Now before you burst in here and tackle the seal off, listen to me. I won't condone you taking my power until you've dealt with all that you're dealing with.**_

At that remark, the blonde grew incredibly disappointed.

 _But Kurama, I need you. I need that power to beat Madara and I need it as soon as I can get it to begin training with it._

It sounded to both of them like a lame excuse, which, honestly, is what it was. Naruto didn't have the mental or emotional capacity to conjure anything better at the moment.

 _ **Naruto have you looked in the mirror lately? You have bags under your eyes that look like Gaara's. I honestly can't believe you're surviving on the little sleep that you're already getting. Do you think you can handle the brunt of my power effectively in this condition? Do you want to see your parents again like this? Do you want the first thing they do for you to be worrying if you're healthy?**_

The boy didn't relent.

 _Kurama…please. I need you,_ he begged.

 _ **Naruto, I care about you more than almost any human I've met since I was born from the Sage. So please trust me when I say that you need help, and please forgive me when I say that I won't give you my power until you've gotten that help.**_

 _ **You're the first friend I've had in centuries. I won't lose you to the darkness like I lost myself.**_

Naruto cut the link after that. Not for any animosity towards what the fox had said – Kurama was right. Naruto was a husk of the man he was. Completely broken and in need of repair. He was scared of the fox seeing how broken he truly was, even though he knew that the Kyuubi already had a grasp on it. It was his way of trying to hide the pain like he always had.

He opened the link one more time, only to ease his tenant's worries.

 _You're right, old friend. I'll get help when I get back to Konoha. Not just for me, but for the both of us. I promise._

Kurama smiled at that.

Naruto sat on the windowsill for what must have been an hour after his conversation with the fox. He let his thoughts go blank, indulging himself in the pleasures of the mind-rotting substances he had grown to love. He finally finished the last of the sake and set the bottle on the ground inside the hotel room when the rustling of sheets caught his attention.

A beautiful woman laid naked, covered only in the sheet on the bed rubbing her eyes tiredly at the boy sitting in the window.

"What are you doing, Naruto?" she spoke softly.

"Just thinking about nothing," he replied, still staring at the moon.

She chuckled a bit and said, "Well if that's the case, why don't you come back to bed? I think I'm ready for round two. If you're leaving so early in the morning then I want some more time before you disappear back to the Leaf."

Naruto nodded a few times at the moon, as if finalizing the understanding that everything they talked about that night would be kept between themselves. A silent pact between old friends. He took the last drag of the joint he was smoking, flicked it out the window, and closed the glass, opting to slide into bed with the woman and give her what she wanted.

(insert break in story here)

Two days later Naruto and Jiraiya had the gate of their home village in their sites, and the two were finalizing the details of the training that occurred the past three weeks.

"I still can't believe the knack you have for sealing, kid. Your parents would have been so proud of you."

This made Naruto smile a bit. He had spent almost all of the free time he had during the three weeks rigorously drilling his physical exercises while having hundreds of clones obsess over the sealing textbooks that his sensei had picked up at the first town they had stopped at.

Overall he cut about two years of studying into two weeks, which the Sage he was travelling with had been none too keen on. Not for any moral reasons - just for the fact that in every aspect of training the kid had a way of one-upping all the things Jiraiya had been learning his entire life. He could confidently say that Naruto was mostly on the same level as himself and nearing his father's understanding of the art.

The Sage continued to obsess over the boy's training progress, going so far as to insinuate that if given the proper training early on, the boy most definitely would have been a prodigy in his own right.

Though, Naruto hated the thought of being a prodigy and having all of your hard work delegated to "things just coming naturally". He considered it an insult that undermined the countless hours of hard work that he had suffered through to get to where he was.

"Thanks, Jiraiya," the blonde replied. "I honestly think I'm close to cracking the curse mark that Orochimaru placed on Sasuke. Though, there are still some intricacies that I'm unfamiliar with, and I can't for the life of me find any reference to them in any sealing book I've read. I'm assuming it's due to the snake developing his own methods so that only he knows its true inner workings."

"Well I have no doubt that with enough time you'll find a way to remove the thing. Knowing Anko she'd probably rock your world if you pulled it off," the old man snickered.

"We'll have to see, won't we old man?" Naruto replied. It wouldn't be an unwelcome prize for all of his work, that's for sure.

"Can I ask again when the hell you turned into such a womanizer? Does what happens in the future change you so much?"

Naruto chuckled.

"If you want the truth, I'd never had sex until about two weeks ago. I died a virgin in the old timeline."

Again, Jiraiya became flustered at his student surpassing him in an aspect of his life – this time the aspect he was most dedicated to.

"You just have to one-up everything that I do, huh? First the jutsu, then the sealing, and now you pull more women than I ever could without paying. Any tips for an old man going through his midlife crisis?" Jiraiya playfully asked.

Naruto laughed at the last comment, and just shrugged his shoulders lazily.

"You try way too hard," the student said. "Quit ogling the women and treat them like an actual person and they'll be much keener on sleeping with you."

"I treat women like everybody else! How dare you insult my skills with handling dames," Jiraiya replied in a mock-insulted tone.

"Well, considering I pick up my women at a bar and you pay for yours, I suggest you listen," Naruto shot back. "Oh, and I would stop calling them dames. You sound too much like the guy who writes porn for a living."

They both shared smiles as they arrived at the gates and checked in with the guards. While going through all the customs, Kotetsu stared at Naruto inquisitively, deciding to speak up on his rising questions.

"What's with the new outfit, kid? Never thought I'd see the day you outgrew orange; and what's with the Kakashi style headband?"

Naruto didn't really think the guard actually cared about his change in wardrobe – it was probably more curiosity about how his exclusively orange garb of thirteen years had changed in the span of three weeks. He stood now in loose fitting beige cloth shorts cut just above his knees and topped himself with a tank that looked a size too large adorned with a baggy short-sleeved jacket that more resembled a robe than anything.

"Just thought it was time for a change, don't you think?" he replied.

It wasn't a stylistic choice more than one of practicality. The jumpsuit was absolutely atrocious regarding any aspect other than general comfort and storage. Now he sacrificed a bit of the storage capacity – which was fixed with the sealing scrolls he had learned to create – in favor of range of motion and camouflage. While the beiges, browns, and blacks weren't a perfect match for every environment, they were much better than what he wore previously.

Additionally, he had taken to wearing wooden sandals akin to Jiraiya's when said sage had shown that the soles could be plated with steel for either the ability to either block weapons or bolster kicks.

Finally, his headband had transformed more into an eyepatch matching the style of Kakashi, hiding the eye that the public would believe he lost in bandit raid. He even went so far as to scar the eyelid and the surrounding flesh and have Kurama heal it just enough so that there was a scar visible form under the cloth, just to sell the bit as far as possible.

After the formalities were in order, the pair finally walked into the village, and Naruto took it all in like it was the first time.

It had been quite a while since he had gotten to see the village this way since Pain's attack. It rushed him with a wave of heavy nostalgia.

 _Everything seems to nowadays, huh?_

 _ **It's the life you'll have to live from now on kid. Take it all in. You have a good four months before you're off again. I suggest you make the most of the time.**_

 _Thanks for the reminder jag-off._

 _ **Oh, and one more thing I've been meaning to say for a while. Find a god damn hobby other than training. It's making me sick seeing you drink, smoke, and exercise your years away. This is a second chance at life. Make the most of it.**_

 _I see your chipper attitude is back in full force! Glad to see you're back to your tsundere-self._

 _ **I swear to fucking god if you call me that again I'll ring your test-**_

Naruto cut the link off there, content with the exchange. While the wholesome, caring fox was always nice once in a while, nothing could beat the jesting animosity that the two shared towards each other. It reminded him of how he observed other kids talking with their best friends in his academy days. He took the teasing, insults, and threats as proof that their friendship was the real thing.

It was one of the rare things that could make him smile in the last month.

The blonde and his mentor continued to walk slowly through the front part of the village, the former taking in the sights and details as if it was both his first and last time ever being able to see his home. When they crossed the threshold to the central part of the village near the hospital, Jiraiya spoke up.

"I'm going to go meet the Hokage and report on the trip. You gonna tag along?"

At the proposition, Naruto paled and felt himself being pulled in two directions. He wanted so badly to see the face of the Third again. So much so that it physically pained him. However, he couldn't possibly look the man in the eye knowing that in a few short days he would be attending his funeral. The guilt would weigh far too heavy on him, and he didn't think he could hold the weight of all that guilt stacking on his chest.

Dejectedly, Naruto turned around.

"I…I don't think I can, Jiraiya. Send him my wishes. I'm going to train."

The Sage's face turned solemn, knowing exactly what was going through his student's head. He could try to convince him, but he knew that Naruto was stubborn in these sorts of situations. He couldn't force him – god knows he couldn't match any amount of force Naruto would exert.

However, he could at least, as a Sage, offer words of advice to the kid.

He spoke sternly to the retreating back of his surrogate child. "Naruto. I can't pretend to know what you're feeling right now, but I can guarantee that if you don't talk to him before the finals, you'll regret it for the rest of your life."

The blonde continued to walk, his eyes plastered ahead but completely unfocussed on anything, letting his feet drag him to the training grounds themselves.

Lost in his sorrows, he was pulled out once passing the Yamanaka flower shop. It stirred a feeling of his past - a memory almost forgotten.

 _God, when was the last time I gardened?_

It had been one of his favorite pastimes in his pre- and late teens but was completely forgotten once Pain destroyed the village and his home along with it. Having something to care for and come home to – even as small and insignificant as a plant – had always given him a sort of sense of passion and desire to return from every mission safely.

It probably seemed stupid to most others, but it helped him work through some of the most desperate and dangerous missions he had been on; and if something seemed stupid, but worked, then he didn't consider it stupid.

 _Well, the fox did say to find a hobby._

Naruto groggily walked through the door of the shop and was met with the harsh aroma of flowers.

Flowers.

Everywhere.

He had never been in the store before, but he never expected the scent to be so strong. He cursed his sensitive nose and did his best to breath out of his mouth for the rest of the stay without looking completely mental.

"Welcome to Yamanaka Flower Shop! How can I- Naruto?"

The boy turned to the familiar voice and was greeted with the only other blonde from his graduating class. Ino looked surprised – he surmised from his change in attire and complete switch in general demeanor and attitude. Not just surprised, but the longer she stared at him, the more he could see another emotion edge its way into her expression: worry.

"Naruto, it's been almost a month! What have you been up to? How have you been?"

Ino's question wasn't laced with the pleasantries that would have been normal in reconnecting friends. It was the voice of somebody from a family of psychologists seeing an obvious patient in distress. She spoke confidently with either feigned or legitimate passion and interest. It almost warmed his heart a bit that she had seen and cared that he was hurting. He thought that she had never cared before.

Regardless, the fact that he was giving away his current mental state so obviously was disconcerting. He didn't want anybody to worry about him. He knew for a fact that they had much bigger things to worry about. He just wished he could tell them.

"Oh, you know, same old same old. Just got back from training with Jiraiya. I'll tell you he may act like an idiot, but the guy knows his stuff. I really think I've improved."

Coming from the lead psychiatrists in Konoha's mental ward, Ino could pick apart his sloppy poker face in seconds. He was hurting. It was obvious. She just didn't know from what.

 _He's completely changed. He just looks…awful. It's the same look that I see in the retired veterans who come in to visit Mom and Dad. Tired. Stressed. I know he's looking at me, but it's as if he's looking through me instead. And when was the last time he's slept? The bags under his eyes are just- Naruto…what the hell happened on that trip?_

For _some_ reason, she called bullshit on his "same old same old" remark. She knew she wasn't close to Naruto, but he was still part of the rookie nine, and she took it on herself to help those comrades by any means necessary. However, she knew him well enough to know that he could be just as stubborn as she was, and if there was one thing he hated most, it was having a legitimate discussion about emotions. It wasn't his thing. He was never good enough with words to describe how he felt, so he just never did.

Thus, she didn't think that the subtle approach would do much for their conversation and seeing as how she didn't know if she would see the boy again for quite some time, Ino took a brash and bold approach and blurted it right out.

"Naruto, what happened?"

"Oh, the eyepatch? Ah, it's kind of embarrassing," Naruto said in the most sheepish voice he could muster. However, it sounded more sluggish and depressive than anything. "Jiraiya and I accidentally let a few bandits sneak up on our camp one night and-"

"Naruto," Ino cut him off. She wasn't interested in his awful attempts at changing the subject. "What. Happened."

His complete disinterest in discussing the subject only roused her suspicions more and heightened her worries. It had occurred to her that she had never actually seen the boy without a smile glued to his face, and the thought of him falling down the gutter frightened her. Such a sudden pivot in behavior was a dangerous sign. A young boy with an irrational state of mind and no family to turn to was like a ticking time bomb. She was afraid that he would either hurt himself or others.

He grew quiet for a moment, and Ino waited eagerly for his answer. Maybe pushing him for explanations wasn't a smart idea, but she felt it her duty as his friend to help with this. The therapeutic "soft voice-talk gently" crap could wait until she found out what was wrong.

"I'm looking for flowers that can be left un-watered for an extended period of time. I plan on taking many missions over the next few months and-"

"Naruto. Stop avoiding the question. Please." She sounded desperate at this point.

"I see you don't have what I'm looking for. Sorry to bother you," he replied and turned to leave. His voice took on a tone of formality that stung Ino to hear. Soon he replaced the scent of flowers with that of the dirt roads and people walking on them and turned to the training grounds and hopped off.

Ino cursed herself. She knew it was stupid to push him, and now she let somebody that she knew was in dire need of help go off on his own. He needed her, and she needed for him to be okay. She didn't want the rookie nine to lose its ray of hope.

Though they could act annoyed with the boy, one would be hard pressed to find any member of their graduating class to name anybody who sparked more inspiration in them as Naruto did, and that was special to all of them. She hoped that what were supposed to be playful jabs and playground taunts in their childhoods weren't misconstrued by the boy. They needed him more than anybody else in the group. The thought of losing him scared her as much as it did the rest of the class.

She would need to have a discussion with Sakura. She had to get to the bottom of this, and fast.

While Ino continued to ponder over the mental state of Naruto, said jinchuuriki arrived at the training grounds frustrated, and unleashed his unbridled fury on the vertical logs in the center of the clearing.

If there was one thing he could do without being reminded of the war, it was obliterating this clearing. So, he set to work.

 **AN:**

 **Here's the next one.**

 **I feel it important to accentuate how Naruto must feel after surviving such a war and seeing the atrocities that were committed along the way. Hell, the kid was probably legally dead for a while after he had the Kyuubi ripped out of him. Nobody comes out of that shit okay, and I think that it's important for his character to go through this kind of stuff.**

 **Now, I'm not an expert on PTSD. Not by a long shot. Or any shot, honestly. So, don't quote me as one. I just am going off of what I've seen in my personal life and am basing the characteristics off that. It'll still probably be far off, but I'll do my damndest. Everybody goes through that stuff in different ways and they get past it in different ways. Just be patient with my writing.**

 **Still considering pairings. Don't know how I'll do it yet. It'll be confirmed by next chapter, so once I start writing it, it's permanent. Between Tsunade, Sakura, or Ino. We'll find out. Whoever says no Hinata pairing – you're right. I hate that pairing. I dislike Hinata as a character and how they got together is kinda bullshit in my eyes? Idk. And no harem. That shit's usually horribly written with the author just relying on the CRA or whatever and having every girl in the pairing completely okay with it. I cannot think of a conceivable way for that to occur, so fuck it.**

 **If you can't tell I don't plan on following the caricatures of the characters that so many other authors do. There's not gonna be any character bashing – I hate that shit. Characters are good when you can empathize with them, and I'm going to try to do that with every one of them. Nobody is plain good or evil. Morality is gray as fuck. Everybody has their own motivations, and I personally believe that each one should be written in as much detail as Naruto is.**


	4. 4

It was normal for the terrain of the training grounds in the village to be non-uniform. Hills, cliffs, and lakes were usually naturally present – if not constructed using jutsu – for the purpose of training in various topography. It was essential to a ninja's survival to be able to effectively traverse any land they encountered, and the more diverse the training areas, the more prepared squads could be in worst case scenarios.

That's the excuse that Naruto had used when staring at the devastation he wrought on the poor clearing. The land at lost its original form in place of the craters and singed patches of grass where stray fire burned away the moisture. What was left of the three logs in the center of the expanse were splintered and in half one-hundred feet away in god knows what direction. He could spot the glint of a few kunai and shuriken he left lying in the grass and resolved to retrieve them as soon as his body stopped aching.

 _ **I mean- Just what the hell, Naruto? I'm honestly embarrassed for you. This just seems irresponsibly childish. What in the fuck possessed you to level this clearing? How could anything that happened since you got back to the village have made you this angry?**_

The blond took the fox's mental berating in stride and continued to admire his handiwork. As a shinobi this was some of the more tangible proof of your own power that you could obtain, so he felt it appropriate to observe the evidence of his strength. The proof that he had the power that he thought he had. Hell, this was limiting himself to the base form of his rasengan and the toad's form of sage mode.

If he had went further, he was sure that he could have produced raw power enough to level parts of the village on his own.

The thought turned backhanded in his mind, and his conscience began twisting it into a grossly distinct form opposite the beauty of his destruction. This was that kind of power being laid into human hands that constantly filled him with dread. The thought that at any given time there were at least a dozen people on the planet that could kill millions with little to no effort, and about a quarter of them would do it if somebody with enough charisma rubbed them the right way.

What would he do if that happened?

What could he do?

It was these hypotheticals that tortured him. Knowing that each of those powerful figures could potentially be a bad day away from annihilating villages and cities.

He forced his mind from the subject, not wanting to dwell on his apprehension anymore. He fell to his ass and addressed the fox.

 _I honestly don't know, Kurama. I don't think it was anger. At least I hope it wasn't. It felt more_

 _like frustration. Years of frustration imploding the minute that Ino started her conversation with me._

 _ **Yeah but what the hell did she say? She asked what was wrong – which was completely reasonable given your appearance, might I add – and you stormed off as if she had just dearly insulted you. Were you that pissed that she could tell you're fucked up right now? She's a Yamanaka! They're all psychiatrists! Of course, she'll know something is wrong when you walked in looking like you did.**_

Naruto paused tentatively, trying to gather his words. He wasn't angry that she had noticed something was wrong with him. It actually kind of flattered him in some weird way, as if she had actually payed enough attention to him during the academy and latter months to be able to tell when he was tired versus when something was actually genuinely hurting him.

 _It's not what she said. It's what I can't say._

The fox quieted down, letting the boy continue.

 _Kurama I appreciate so much that you want to help by listening to me, but I don't know if you can provide the kind of comfort that I need. You and I are close enough that sometimes telling you things feels the same as just keeping it to myself. I know you're there to listen, but I also know that being a massive chakra construct given a personality can sometimes shut off the ability to empathize with us humans in a lot of ways that matter._

 _I just…I need somebody to talk to that isn't you or Jiraiya, because we both know that Jiraiya is an awful listener and an even worse giver of advice; but I know that I can't do that. Nobody can know where I'm from and what I have to do, and it's just so frustrating._

 _I've always felt alone in my life. It's been the standing characteristic of mine since the day I was born. But being here in the past, not being able to share the experience with any of my peers. The feeling used to just drape over me like a blanket, but now I'm just feeling more and more smothered, and it's suffocating me._

Kurama didn't talk back. It wasn't upset by the blond's blatant statement hinting at the fox's lack of feelings. Naruto was right. The tailed beasts had always had an incredibly difficult time empathizing with the emotions of human beings. That was just a sad truth of being immortal. What the kid needed was somebody he could relate to. Somebody that he could tangibly cling and bond with in a meaningful, emotional relationship. Not necessarily a romantic one, but one that would have legitimate meaning to the boy.

 _How did they do it?_

 _ **Who?**_ Kurama questioned back.

 _The greats, ya know? The heroes of legend. All of the Hokage. How did they deal with all of the trauma they went through?_

The fox sighed, knowing that the answers wouldn't very much satisfy his container.

 _ **Well, the First Hokage, while horrifically powerful, was an idiot. A lot like how you used to be, surprisingly. I honestly don't know if he had the mental capacity to focus on anything that wasn't war-related. It's why his tenure as Hokage was so comparatively short to his successors.**_

 _ **The Second was too busy and proud to feel anything. The village came first in his eyes, and every life taken and atrocity committed was passed off as for the good of Konoha. When he wasn't awake creating forbidden jutsu and segregating the Uchiha, he slept like a god damned baby.**_

 _ **The Third simply lived long enough to cope with the things that he'd done and seen. It became a part of him and he learned to accept it. He never forgot, but he never let it eat away at him either. He's an incredibly strong-willed man. It takes quite a bit to break his spirit.**_

 _ **Your father wasn't some special case, as much as I hate to admit it. He broke during certain events in the Third War. The battle that distinguished his legacy as an all-powerful ninja also destroyed him inside. He hated killing, and he killed hundreds of people that day. The only thing that kept him sane through all of it was the fact that he had your mother and yourself to come home to every day.**_

The beast paused in his speech, which was uncharacteristic of him.

 _ **I want to tell you that you can beat this just like they did: alone. But the things that they saw in the first three wars can't hold a candle to what's in your memories. Hell, I've been alive for around nine hundred years and I have never seen humans manifest a war like this upcoming one.**_

 _ **I think that your best bet is to talk to somebody.**_

The Kyuubi was determined to help his host, having grown close enough to the kit to develop a fondness suitable that he didn't wish to see the boy eaten away by his own subconscious. Plus, living in an unhappy jailer really brought the mood of the whole "dim-light cramped sewer" aesthetic to a low point that he didn't even know it could reach, and he was really trying to salvage a silver lining so he could at least have _some_ accommodations if he was going to be sealed in the kid for a while longer.

 _ **Have you considered maybe that telling Sarutobi might not be the worst idea? Out of anybody, you know that he can put plans in motion that will help in the coming war immensely. And you know that he can get you the help you need right now. If anybody has the resources to stave both of your problems, it's him.**_

The blonde remained pensive at the idea. When he found out that the Old Man was still alive, it was his first instinct to run to him and explain everything. A conversation with Jiraiya stayed his hand, though, and he considered all of the consequences that could occur. Best case scenario was that all of the plans Hiruzen would potentially put in place would fly under the radar until it was time for said contingencies to be enacted during the war.

Worst case scenario? The Third makes himself known as a contender in the playing field giving Obito adequate time to mount countermeasures, possibly turning the war into a completely unfamiliar direction than Naruto had been accustomed to.

 _I'm still hesitant. We don't know the likely backlash that will occur from telling him. With Danzo still a major player in the game right now, his ROOT operatives could get wind and spread word to Orochimaru, furthering any complications._

It all just seemed like a giant mess to him. The pros and cons were so muddled together that Naruto could hardly distinguish one from the other.

 _ **I think that you don't give Sarutobi enough credit. I know for a fact that he is completely aware of any ROOT spies stationed in his room at any given moment. He's dealt with them more than once during my time inside of your mother.**_

 _Can you not say that last part ever again?_

 _ **If you decide that you want to do this and make it known how serious the matter is to the old man, he will make the arrangements of privacy to your liking. Even bring Jiraiya along if it makes the operation feel safer. The point is that I personally feel that telling the Third will have far more benefits than detriments if the information and planning are handled correctly.**_

 _I didn't hear the heavy emphasis on 'if' that should have been in that sentence._

 _ **Hey, remember when you were an optimist? God those were good times.**_

Naruto took a step back from the light teasing and pondered over the conversation. He trusted Kurama more than anybody else in the world right now, and if he truly believed that this was a good idea, then he would tell Hiruzen first thing tomorrow.

He got up groggily and lackadaisically paced his way towards the red-light district.

 _Before that, though, a drink._

 **(Page b-b-b-b-break)**

"Why are we going so early again?" Ino asked, briskly making her way up the rotting wood that the apartment complex liked to call a "stairway".

"Because knowing Naruto if we don't catch him in the morning he'll be off training all day and we won't get to see him. Now, this was your idea so stop complaining because we're almost there," Sakura replied.

The day prior had found Ino and Sakura at lunch after Naruto's visit to the flower shop with the platinum-haired girl uncharacteristically concerned with the mental state of the pinkette's blond teammate. She continued to allude to 'his eyes' and how 'they seemed off' but couldn't elaborate on any of the descriptions.

Sakura had initially dismissed it as her comrade overworking himself as usual. It wasn't unlike the boy to stay the night at the training grounds after working himself to the bone. It could've just been that Ino had caught him at the end of a training session from which he was still exhausted from.

Ino refused to believe it, still chattering on about 'this being different' and 'we need to go check on him.'

The request to check in on Naruto confused Sakura, as Ino had never shown this type of interest in his health before now. She didn't really want a part in whatever obsession her friend had found in her teammate, but she could at least use this as an excuse to go and check in on him post-training. It had been lonely without Team Seven together in the past month, so she was eager to get back into rhythm that they had.

Thus, both girls agreed to meet early in the morning before Naruto left for training and check on him to make sure that he was doing well.

The walk over the next morning was an event in itself, with the girls trading whispers of 'I didn't know hookers worked this early in the day' and 'This is the third person that's tried to sell me cocaine'.

Having trudged through the shittier parts of the village, they finally managed to find Naruto's apartment building, due thanks to the time Sakura had had to retrieve Naruto for an emergency missions call a few months prior. Even then she had never actually been in or seen the inside save for the glance in when Naruto opened the door.

Needless to say, Ino was thoroughly disgusted with everything pertaining to the red-light district. She honestly couldn't believe that Naruto could live in a hell-hole like this until Sakura had to explain that this was one of the only establishments that would accommodate the boy. For some strange reason every other complex had quickly driven him away either with absurdly inflated prices or an actual broom stick.

It made Ino feel a twinge of pity for her fellow blond, before chalking the experiences up to the reputation that Naruto had given himself with all of his previous troublemaking. It was cruel but understandable from a business perspective to not want a hoodlum like the Uzumaki boy living in and loitering around such well-established places of living.

After thinking that, she berated herself. _God that was such a bitch thing to think. How can you deny living to someone willing to pay?_ The thought of entitled landlords forcing Naruto into living next to brothels and bars made her livid.

The pair finally pulled to a dilapidated door that didn't look quite solid enough to be called a door. In fact, it looked more like shoddily painted plywood mounted with a lock and sloppily hinged on the frame next to it. The exterior of the apartment didn't bode well for the interior, and the entire area that Naruto lived in was ready to be forgotten as soon as they'd left for the day.

Sakura knocked on the door eagerly, honestly quite excited to see the clown again. It had been so long and he left without saying a word. It was surprising to her that he didn't try and come find herself and Sasuke to say hello immediately when he got back to the village. _Probably just nerves from the exam being so close. He needs rest and quiet after his trip with a Sannin,_ the girl thought.

Both kunoichi heard a 'Hold on!' followed by heavy footsteps inside the apartment. A minute later the door swung open to reveal a Naruto that Sakura did not recognize. Ino was right in her summary of him now. He just looked…worse. And shirtless.

 _Where the hell did he get all of those scars? And what happened to his eye?_

Said PTSD-ridden Gennin looked in surprise at his visitors.

"Oh, hey guys! What's wrong? Emergency mission before the finals?" the boy questioned.

"No!" Sakura quickly exclaimed. "We just haven't seen you in a while and thought we'd stop by to say hey!" Ino nodded in agreement.

Naruto seemed a bit wary at the sentiment. It was nice of them to come, sure, but they had quite literally _never_ done this before in the entire seventeen years of the last timeline. He presumed it had something to do with Ino and was more and more regretting how he had treated her yesterday.

Resolving to apologize to his fellow blonde when he got the chance to talk to her one on one, he replied, "That's really nice of you guys. Wanna come in? I just started cooking breakfast."

Both girls gratefully accepted the invitation and entered the apartment to a peculiar site. It was _neat_. Neat as in clean. As in not a place a slob would live. As in not where they imagined Naruto would live. It was a nice living room space with a kitchenette shared with a decently sized living area furnished with a couch and a bookshelf. Even more surprising were the shelves being full of texts on sealing, general and detailed history, battle strategy, ninjutsu, and a few stray fiction novels here and there.

Accompanying the furniture were clones of Naruto either reading or doing general housework. Overall both girls thought the apartment was nice. A bit minimalist if anything, but they kept their interior design choices to themselves.

Naruto showed them to a small kitchen table and continued to make breakfast – now for three – as they took their seats.

"Eggs, bacon, and potatoes good for the both of you?" he asked.

Again, the girls were pleasantly surprised. They never knew that he could cook. Both were half expecting to see cups of instant ramen littering the pantries and anywhere he could stuff them. Regardless they both nodded affirmatively.

He had a clone of his continue to stir the cooking while he went into his bedroom to pull on a loose-fitting tang top.

Sakura took the time while waiting for the original Naruto's return to take in the sight of his clone. She surmised that Ino was right. This wasn't the post training look that Naruto usually portrayed. It was difficult to describe, but she had spent enough time with the boy to know that right now he was tired mentally and not physically.

More importantly, he hadn't smiled the entire time that they had been there. A minute or two of not cracking a single grin in a casual setting was the most worrying of all signs in terms of Naruto. It was impossible to pry the happiness from his face just a month ago, and personalities didn't undergo this kind of change this fast with it being healthy.

And his eyes. The glance that she had gotten into his eyes was enough to cause her uneasiness. They looked like they were dying. The light inside of them was dimming, and it hit her deeply.

Since the formation of Team Seven, the two had grown to have a kinship with each other. He had finally staved off his romantic interest – at least he had staved off doing it out loud and to her face – and they had grown into a comfortable sibling-like relationship. Seeing her brother hurt like this and not knowing what was wrong or how to fix it agonized her.

He entered the room a few seconds later, and she would spend the rest of the visit being generally concerned for her teammate and doing her absolute best to hide it. She knew that there was nothing that Naruto hated more than the pity of others.

Naruto pushed to an offense at the start of the conversation, drilling them about the events of the last month, how training was going, and how the other finalists in the exam were progressing. The inquiries were formalities at this point for him, and he hoped he wasn't sounding disinterested or dismissive of their answers.

He did sound that way, the girls had felt, which just furthered their uncertainty of his well-being.

Eventually he served the food. It was nothing special, and he would have rather had the egg and pork in the form of toppings in his ramen, but his budget and general health didn't really agree with his addiction anymore.

It wasn't long before the girls were able to steer the conversation into his himself, and Sakura came right out with one of the big questions right off the bat.

"Can I ask what happened to your eye?" She sounded worried. He hated that he made her worried.

"Ah just some lucky little bandit group caught Jiraiya and me off our guard. I was exhausted from training that day and Pervy-Sage just got off of one of his booze and brothel benders. Triple B's is what he likes to call them. We both passed out after making camp and some lucky dick who'd probably never wielded a knife before thought a slash to the eye would do me in."

He chuckled a bit. Not to convince them of the story or anything, just because he thought the story that he made up was kind of funny.

 _Ya know, like the stupid kind of funny? Like charming more than anything else? Not clever or ironic but just when you hear it-_

 _ **Naruto fuck off I'm trying to sleep.**_

"Anyways he learned really quick that he was wrong as hell and got a swift kick to the throat and ride to the bounty office to collect a reward for his arrest."

Ino chuckled along with the boy in the end, taking some solace in how lightheartedly he could experience an accident that other ninja would consider near career ending. Sakura, however, showed a little more concern for her teammate's debilitating injury.

"How badly does it affect your depth perception during a fight?" the pinkette asked. A surprising question that the jinchuuriki had never considered.

"Not that badly, quite honestly," Naruto replied after some thought. "Jiraiya has been teaching me about this thing called 'nature energy' or whatever. I haven't mastered it yet but I'm getting close and it allows me to sense movements and chakra around me. It won't be a perfect workaround for missing an eye, but it's definitely better than nothing."

In reality, fighting with one eye did fuck up his depth perception. Horribly. For three weeks he'd been wondering how Kakashi could do it so efficiently. In order to get around that he applied a sealing matrix on the inside of the headband that mimicked his sensei's transparency technique, except it acted like a one-way mirror. He could see through the headband perfectly but to everybody else it just looked like he was copying his sensei's style.

Still, he was proud of the lie that he had just come up with. He never thought anybody would be such a stickler for details to ask about something so specific. _But hey, that's the Sakura we all know and love,_ he thought.

The girls didn't seem happy at the boy losing an eye, but they fully leaned into the deceptions he was feeding them and went onwards with their interrogation.

"Other than getting a knife to an orifice, how was the training trip?" Ino questioned.

Naruto chuckled a bit at the remark. "Not bad. Jiraiya acts like a fool but when it comes to getting serious there aren't many people around that could take him in a fight. He had me sign the Toad Summoning contract and I got to train with some of them, too."

Naruto noticed the girls' recoiled expressions at the mention of toads and found it hard not to find slight insult in it. Since he had signed the contract and learned the Sage Arts from the toads, he considered them all family just as much as anybody in Konoha. In fact, the village wouldn't have even existed after the Pain attack in the previous timeline if not for the aid that Gamabunta and his mates had provided in the battle.

Dismissing one of the greatest summoning clans on the planet purely based on the fact that they are "gross" amphibians was bullshit, especially since Sakura signed the slug contract later on down the road.

He offered a rebuttal to their grimaces. "They're incredibly strong. Legend has it that the Elder who lives on Mount Myoboku was the one to train the Sage of Six Paths which I for one think is pretty badass."

 _Thanks for that fun fact, Kurama._

 _ **Didn't I tell you I'm fucking sleeping.**_

The girls eased their tension of the creatures at the myth, indulging him and urging he continue the story.

He did just that and regaled them with tales of his training and the antics that his sensei had gotten them in while stopping in towns. Most of the stories had been taken from the same trip five or so years in Naruto's past while the others were from his more extended training trip with the details embellished, but it was enough to satisfy the two.

An hour of talking had flown past with the three barely noticing it, and it wasn't until the group heard the creaking of Naruto's bedroom door that their conversations were interrupted. Ino and Sakura looked back casually expecting to see another clone that was going about his cleaning duties.

That was not what it was.

What stepped out was a girl about two years their senior in shorts and one of Naruto's orange jackets as a shirt. She was pulling her hair into ponytails as she walked from the bedroom to the bathroom and shut the door without even acknowledging the others in the room.

Both kunoichi sitting across from Naruto were absolutely speechless at what had just occurred, and the jinchuuriki simply continued eating his breakfast and drinking his coffee. He looked completely collected, and Sakura was genuinely surprised at not only the fact that a girl wearing his clothes – and nothing else – just walked out of his bedroom this early in the morning, but also that he was so calm and carefree about it all that he didn't even bat an eye at it.

 _Naruto, what the hell did Jiraiya do to you?_ Sakura thought.

 _Naruto, when did you become a fucking player?_ Ino thought.

 _ **Naruto, I don't remember you sleeping with the Subaku girl in the last timeline**_ **,** Kurama thought.

 _Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck,_ Naruto thought.

He decided to answer all three of them at once.

"I got _very_ drunk last night."

"No shit…" Ino muttered in a stupor.

The silence continued within the muffled sounds of the shower being used. Ino and Sakura were still boggled at what had just occurred and were both trying to find some way to either ease the tension or bring it up in a non-awkward manner. Meanwhile, Naruto was having a _very_ serious discussion with his tenant.

 _You think I can beat Gaara this time around just by telling him I fucked his sister?_

 _ **I mean the shock factor of it all would probably be enough to bring him out of the trance he gets placed in. Although you run the risk of him getting even angrier.**_

 _Think it's worth a try? Could possibly snap him out of it early._

 _ **Or he could possibly snap your neck.**_

 _I'm willing to take that risk. Ya know, for science._

Both chuckled at the exchange before Kurama decided to bring them both back to the ground.

 _ **Seriously though, Naruto. You need to either commit to this whole "preserving the timeline" or I'll start forcing you to be more proactive in preparations for the war.**_

 _Which one of those allows me to still get my dick wet?_ Naruto joked.

 _ **Hey, did you know I can give you erectile disfunction if I want? Since we started this partnership I've had much better access to your organs and-**_

 _Proactivity it is._

He was brought out of his thoughts as a fully dressed Temari emerged from his bathroom and headed straight for the door. She gave him a small smile as if to thank him for the night, and as she turned the knob to leave Naruto took the opportunity to ask her a favor.

"Don't tell your brother. I'd like to live past the age of thirteen."

Temari could hear the jest in his tone and replied with a small chuckle and a reply of, "See ya at the finals, lover boy," as she closed the door behind her.

Silence hung in the room after the debacle, and with their plates having been cleared of food for a while and the conversation having now taken a backseat to shock that they had just undergone, Ino and Sakura decided that it was time for them to leave and quickly made their exit shortly thereafter.

The situation caused Naruto to stir. _You think this'll give me a not-so-generous reputation?_ he asked Kurama.

 **Just go see your fucking grandpa,** the fox responded in annoyance.

And with that, the two started their trek to the Hokage Tower.

 **(AN):**

 **Hope the writing is getting better as the story goes along. I feel like I've rushed a lot of things and haven't added enough exposition where there should be some, so I'll try to rectify that. New writer and everything, so I hope there's a quality increase that comes with each chapter.**

 **If the conversations between Naruto and Kurama are jumbled and hard to read, sorry. The speech comes out differently in my head than it does on paper and it's really fucking with the flow.**

 **Aw skeet skeet motherfucker**

 **Aw skeet skeet goddamn**


End file.
